My Gymnastics Training Trip to China
July 23 – August 3, 2013
By Elijah Thompson, age 11 yrs
At 6am July 23, 2013 we met the team at Calgary International Airport to fly to Vancouver, where we would connect with the CCGC team for the China Eastern Airlines flight to Shanghai, China! This would be my longest solo (no parents) training camp and the furthest away from home since I started gymnastics almost 6 years ago.
Coaches traveling with the team were Miguel, Scott, Cam, Jian and Liang. Every coach was super excited for the cultural and gymnastics opportunity. Because Liang has made this trip many times with his athletes, we had complete confidence that the trip would be safe and incredible both for gymnastics and for learning about a different culture.
I had my grips and gymnastics things, ipad and earphones, blanket and snacks, all in my backpack and my things for China in a new rolling red Canada flag marked bag for checking in! I was ready. “This trip is going to be awesome!”, I was thinking.
At Vancouver airport after a one and one half hour flight, we met up with Liang, his boys and their parents and prepared for our 5 hour lay-over before boarding the China Eastern Airlines flight. I had enough time to get a sandwich with my Subway card and rest. Then it was time to board the plane for China and the 13 hour flight (it felt like forever).
Everything went fine on the long flight. I had no problems with asthma, just stiffness and tiredness from the long flight! I got up A LOT and stretched A LOT!! There were no screens at all and the food was not very good. But, I had my ipad and I had snacks with me in my carry-on bag, so I was fine until my ipad went out of batteries. The only charger place on the plane was in the bathroom and it didn’t work, so once my ipad was out of juice, that was it!
Flying into Shanghai was amazing. I could see the ocean of course, a lot of trees and bushes and skyscrapers for miles. The city was so awesome-ly colourful and amazing. As Cam said, it was so ‘brilliant and vivid’! Lights were everywhere. We left Tuesday morning from Calgary and got to China at supper time Wednesday!
SHANGHAI
The bus driver and tour guide for the Shanghai and Changzhou portions of our adventure, Vivaldi, was standing with a sign for us to see at the airport. But it was ‘Canada’ written in Chinese characters!! Only Liang and Jian could recognize it. Bahahaha!! J
Our tour bus was comfortable for all of us to fit in. It had comfy white cloth seats and blue curtains on the tall windows, pulled back so that we could see out. It was a two hour drive from the Pudong Shanghai Airport to the Hotel Equatorial. This first hotel we stayed at was very nice. We had supper and went right to bed! I bought water for the first night. In the morning we had a breakfast buffet in a very fancy dining room. I ate then went up to my room. Then we were off for our first morning of sightseeing and training.
We walked around Shanghai and learned about many beautiful buildings and temples. Early in the morning, we walked through a beautiful garden past a large group of people practicing Tai Chi with a teacher and others doing it individually. Other people walking by did not pay any attention to them, like it was a normal thing! There were also people doing Tai Chi all alone in the garden. It was as if people doing Tai Chi in the garden was completely usual, which it was!
We all took photos in front of the Oriental Pearl Tower, a major focal point of the Shanghai skyline. The design of the building is said to be based on a verse of the Tang Dynasty poem Pipa Song by Bai Juyi about the wonderful sprinkling sound of a pipa instrument, like pearls, big and small falling on a jade plate (大珠小珠落玉盘/大珠小珠落玉盤/dà zhū xiǎo zhū luò yù pán).
It was an interesting tour for sure but there were many other cool things to see, so we hustled along to see them. I was like a sponge just taking everything in.
A lady gave me a fan for free. My first Chinese fan! Then I was walking by a statue and Mr. Ritchie said, ‘you know what to do when you are by a statue; pose!”. I struck a pose copying the statue and he took a photo.
This photo is of the Canadian team in China with coaches Liang Cheng, Scott Rayment, Miguel Costante, Jian Shen and Cameron Taylor ,at the famous Yu Garden later in the afternoon. You can see how happy we are!
We walked around these beautiful gardens and really enjoyed all that we saw: pools with goldfish, turtles (Dillon and I especially enjoyed the turtles), sculptures, beautifully trimmed bushes and hedges, delicate flowers and plants; it was awesome. The tour guide told us that from ancient times, the Chinese built naturally beautiful and delicate gardens as places for spiritual renewal and quiet with still waters, craggy rocks, clumps of flowers and bridges for walking.
It was very hot walking. You could not see the sun because a mist hung over everything, like in a sauna or a steam room.
Cam enjoyed taking photos of everything we saw. Tim Ritchie, Spencer’s dad, did the same. Of course Miguel took many photos too. I just took it all in! I was enjoying every moment of this opportunity and it had only just begun!
Shanghai was an enormous city, much bigger than I expected. Its population, 23 million, was as much as Canada’s was when my parents were my age! It is the largest city by population in the Peoples Republic of China. It is located in the Yangtze River Delta in East China on the East China Sea (basically part of the Pacific Ocean), half way between Beijing and Hong Kong.
Beautiful rivers, canals and streams run through Shanghai. Because of this, the soil is soft and skyscrapers must be built with deep concrete piles to stop them from sinking. A tributary of the Yangtze River, the Huangpu River, bisects the city. Everything was green and lush. In Chinese characters, the name Shanghai means: “upon the sea” and it certainly is!
Shanghai was one of several Chinese cities opened to foreign trade following the British victory over China in the First Opium War and 1842 Treaty of Nanking. It is a popular city for tourists like us with its historical landmarks, including the Yu Garden and Taoist, City of God Temple. We saw both of these! Here is the Jade Buddha temple and the City of God Temple underneath:
We saw a beautiful temple in Shanghai. In this photo, you can see the decorative figures on the roof, guarding the temple. Vivaldi explained the meaning of these clay figures so that we would understand that even the architecture is full of stories and meaning in China.
It was exceedingly hot, almost 40 degrees Celcius! My first day in China, I felt really hot, but after 24 hours I was pretty well used to it and doing fine by the end of day 2! There was so much to see and do that the heat was not even a distraction!
We also went sightseeing along Nanjing Street, another famous tourist attraction. Vivaldi had lots to say about the old buildings, carvings, dragons at the gates and all. It was fascinating. I soaked in everything!
Vivaldi pointed out how every carving had meaning. For example, at the entrance to a temple or garden or house, (as in the dragon at the entrance to the Yu Garden), the dragon carving must only have 3 or 4 claws, not 5, because 5 is reserved for the Emperor’s Palace. If the dragon carving has 5 claws, it is considered a challenge to the emperor’s power and will be punished by the whole family responsible being killed! And, the dragon is not a terrifying monster in Chinese culture, but a benign (harmless) creature that embodies wisdom, strength and goodness. This is why it was the emperor’s symbol. Above all the dragon symbolizes the life-giving force of water. Ancient Chinese people believed that dragons inhabited every river, lake and sea and also lived high in the sky among the rainclouds. Maybe they did.
Vivaldi, above, pointing out the significance of the guardians of the gate.
As we were touring around, I noticed that many of the Chinese people, especially the older ones, had old yellow teeth. I imagine that they don’t have access to good health and dental care like we do in Canada.
For all of our meals in Shanghai, we ate in lovely hotels at round tables with a spinning thing in the middle holding our choices of food. We could try anything and I always tried to attempt a brand new dish. I really liked the vegetable dishes and fish dishes. I soon became expert at chopsticks!
Then we trained in the Shanghai training centre. The first day I did some nice high bar and pommel. I did dislocate on high bar. It was a full high bar over high mats, but no pit. On pommel, I did scissors on two handle, circles on high 1 handle pommel and flares on mushroom. It was a good day of training.
The second day we had another breakfast in the hotel, buffet style, then did some light training at the Shanghai Sports School. The Parallel Bars felt quite different, but we did train fine on them. In China, the parallel bars are basically set at one width for the young boys so I learned how to manage without fine adjustments. On parallel bars I did under swings getting ready for giants, diamidov and Stutz. Also we did some high bar and I worked on dismounts and dislocates.
The Shanghai gym was older, but had a great set up. Imagine two Calgary Gymnastics Centre gyms stacked on top of each other with a school attached and an outside soccer field and you are imagining the Shanghai gym. The inside was designed so that the older boys and girls train in the bottom gym and the top gym is reserved for the young boys and young girls. The attitude in the gyms and feeling there is really different from what we are used to in Canada. The gyms are very quiet, the coaches are far from their athletes (except for key moments where they need to be close for spotting) and the boys do not talk much; they work. I liked it very much.
Each boy I saw was very talented, serious and focused, but they loved what they were doing. I could tell that. At a young age they acted like responsible athletes, always ready for their turn and focusing on the correction their coach told them. Some of the boys asked me how old I was. When I said 11 years old, they said, ‘oooh!”. Although they looked like they were 8 or 9 years old, they said they were actually older than I was!
I trained upstairs with Scott and Miguel while Jian had the older boys from our team in the downstairs gym. It was not too terribly hot in the training gyms. I would not say there was air conditioning, but we are used to a warm gym at home, so it was fine for me.
I did some pommel horse, vault and high bar. It was fun to train again and be on equipment in a different gym with different boys and coaches. The equipment was a bit different from Canadian equipment, but I was able to adapt fine. On pommel the surface was very rough, like sandpaper, so I ended up ripping my longs a bit. That was not a worry to me, except that now I had no protection in the bare spots from scratching up my legs.
The rope climb was epic! The girls worked very hard at the Shanghai Training Centre, especially on flexibility and form. The boys had very good form as well. They might not have taken as many turns as some athletes, but they made sure every turn counted and really tried to make the correction their coach told them to make. It is the same everywhere in the world, in every sport: If you listen to your coach and try to make the correction, your coach is pleased and your turns get better and better. It does take time, of course.
For food in Shanghai during the day, we had dim sum. It means lots of different dishes you can choose a little from in the middle of the table. I became handy with chopsticks and was brave enough to try duck eggs (not very good), not the duck tongues (!), fish/squid type things, sticky rice (nice), vegetables, new scrumptious fruits and lots of other things.
This scary looking chicken did not tempt me, nor did the Wasabi blizzards, or duck tongues, below.
Duck tongues!
Before we headed out for some shopping, Vivaldi gave us some rules to follow to ensure the lowest price, although he said at the end of his lecture, “but I am from China so please buy high price help support our economy”. He is a very funny man. He also told us that there were different kinds of taxi cabs. Dark Red and Dark Blue taxicabs are ‘very bad; rip you off’, but the light colors are fine. One boy in our group asked about the black cabs. He said, ‘black, we don’t have black cabs in Shanghai!’ He thought a minute, then he said, ‘Oh…black cabs. If you get in a black cab you may not get out with your liver!’ Scary!
I did try the reducing prices thing, bargaining for a pink bracelet for my sister Kaisha, but my heart was pounding! The shopkeeper named a price, I named one lower, he named one imbetween, and I said, ‘sure’, glad to be out of there!!
The traffic was unbelievable but we saw only 1 or 2 accidents. There are so many cars that I think people must be amazing drivers just to survive! It seems they all know the rules of merging from 6 lanes to 2 and avoiding bikes and oncoming traffic in the wrong lane.
Crossing the street is like taking your life in your hands, literally! Cars do not yield to people! It is a real risk to cross the street. Basically you have to bolt and be very careful. On the other hand, bikes and scooters were everywhere. Bikes were parked in big line ups outside of stores. That part was safe and healthy!
While we were sightseeing, it was at least 39 degrees, then, I think, the government caused a rainstorm for a short moment and the temperature came down 10 degrees! Sometimes the authorities shoot something into the clouds to cause rain. It was amazing. People ran for cover but we just enjoyed a little bit of coolness! There is a huge thermometer in Shanghai that you can see on the side of a building. If it gets over 40 degrees, the tour guide told us, the government has to shut down some of the businesses. Of course, the government does not like to do that; This is how it works: first they fib and say it is 39 degrees basically every day, and next, if it is way over 40, they shoot something into the clouds and cause a shower to bring down the temperature! Amazing! We saw it happen!
Here are the people scrambling in the rain with their sun umbrellas. Meanwhile Austin, Scott and I and lots of others in our group, loved the cooling mist, finally!
Above you see the thermometer has dropped all the way to 28 degrees. So cool!!
As I said, the first day in Shanghai, yes, I was very hot! But it seemed like after 24 hours my body adapted and I no longer felt crazy hot all the time. It was a lot of walking every day with the tour guide, Vivaldi, but each step was fascinating. He had such awesome stories and details to tell that I didn’t feel the tiredness, if you see what I mean.
At one point while we were walking, my teammate Spencer Ritchie felt that he had a little heat stroke. Vivaldi offered him a Chinese remedy. Good for Ritchie, he tried it! It worked for him. I was really happy about that.
Of course the weather was very hot and humid our entire 11 day trip. It is coolest at night, but even then it is close to 30 degrees Celcius or hotter. I am amazed at how quickly I got used to it. The Chinese use sun umbrellas to keep from getting sunburned or suntanned because those things denote lower class (worker classes who work outdoors). The people want to stay pale to show they are upper class (work indoors at desks). That is a sad thing. I feel no job is better than another. If you use your gifts and work hard at your job, you are a success!
We did not see the sun in China very much, especially in Shanghai. It was misty like a steam room or a sauna. Vivaldi, our tour guide, says that the government insists there is no pollution, but ‘they lie!’. Because of the humidity, my asthma was ok (except on the runs). Thankfully the pollution did not bother me except on runs.
Our third day in Shanghai (2nd full day) ended with a riverboat cruise on the Yangtzi River to see the amazing lights of Shanghai at night. It was very pretty and everyone took a lot of photos and walked along the deck to get the best view.
I enjoyed the sound of the river, the beautiful lights and the coolness of the air after the heat of the day. We had a tour guide on the boat of course, and learned about the famous City of Skyscrapers, Shanghai. There were many other boats touring around at the time, including something that looked like an old fashioned pirate ship!
The buildings along the river appeared to be designed for lighting up in an artistic way at night. It was certainly a beautiful sight.
The morning of our fourth day in Shanghai, we said goodbye to our friends there. It was a short time in their gym, but a real learning experience. Nice athletes, good people.
After saying goodbye, we left Shanghai and drove 3.5 hours in the tour bus to Changzhou. It was still very hot, but we had air conditioning on the tour bus. We stopped for a break at a roadside place where you could buy coke, strawberry Oreos, duck eggs, chicken feet and other things on sticks. The chicken feet were very interesting but I did not buy any! I would wait for Changzhou to see what food would be like there. I was not disappointed!
Day 4 (day 3 for us, but 4 back in Canada!) mom got this message from Miguel’s phone, her first about me!:
Hi
Elijah is doing great, he has a lot of fun, training well and visiting nice places
Don't worry he is having a great time
I am sorry I don't send much but we don't have wifi, almost anywhere
Regards
Miguel
She was very happy to hear this! Plus, I was having a great time; that is for sure!
CHANGZHOU
Our next destination was Changzhou, a city in Southern Jiangsu Province in Eastern China with a population of over 4 million. I was excited to see another Chinese city and experience the sights and gymnastics there. This is where we would see Liang’s recreational gymnastics facility, Inspire Sports.
Soon after we arrived in Changzhou, we attended a huge Inspire Sports BBQ (at the Inspire Sports facility) in honour of gymnastics in Jiangsu Province and the success of recreational gymnastics programs that Liang and Jeff Thomson from Canada were instrumental in starting in 2011. My special friend, Jeff Thomson, from British Columbia (former head of Men’s Artistic Gymnastics programming for Gymnastics Canada) was there as was my special friend and coach Bin Fan! It was very nice to talk with Bin. He was super comfortable speaking, very happy to talk with myself and the other Calgary boys.
It was awesome to talk with Jeff as well. I was not completely surprised to see Jeff in China because I knew he loved China and traveled there frequently. He said he was really pleased to be able to introduce me personally to his very good friend Huang Yubin, who is also the Head coach for China and arguably the greatest coach of all time. He has the most medals for his athletes at Olympics in gymnastics for sure.
I also met Yang Wei, the Chinese Olympic All Around Champion and winner of Team Gold for China from the first Olympics I remember watching every moment of, the 2008 Beijing Olympics. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yang_Wei_(gymnast) He is like a superhero here in China. He kindly posed for a photo with me. He did know a little English and asked me, ‘You want picture?’. He seemed very nice even though he was overwhelmed with media and kids mobbing him.
The barbeque also raised money for special needs kids to do gymnastics. That was just awesome! I donated 2 books from Canada towards the fundraiser and played with lots of the kids. I gave out some gifts we brought from Canada as well. It was a great night!
This photo shows Bin Fan and I at the barbeque! It was so great to see him. He was looking happy and relaxed. He also was on the bus with us for a while on our way to Changzhou. I have never forgotten how Bin ate breakfast with me at my first Nationals in 2011 in Prince Edward Island when I was separated from my group. He has a heart of gold.
The young man in the blue shirt is Yang Wei giving a speech about how amazing gymnastics is as a sport (of course!). You can see Jeff Thomson sitting behind him in the white shirt. Yang Wei gave a talk about the importance of gymnastics on culture and community. He, together with China's head coach, Huang Yubin, talked to the crowd and stayed to sign autographs for Yang Wei’s new book release. We boys felt like superstars because of all the media coverage. There were cameras filming the gym and the Olympic star and we were there giving out Canadian gifts and doing flips. It was super fun!
China's head coach said that, “athletics is the father of all sports and gymnastics is the mother of all sports”. He said that everything comes from these. Even soccer players do flips when they score a goal! These were powerful words and many of us really appreciated them.
Yang Wei is getting mobbed here at the gymnastics school! But he took time to ask me if I would like a photo:
After the big fancy barbeque, we stayed in a super ritzy Howard Johnson hotel, just for one night. I of course never had it so fancy! It was quite amazing. That was a good thing, because the next day we started training at 6:15am before more sightseeing and our 3.5 hour bus ride to Hangzhou!
The coaches and workers at Inspire Sports were so welcoming to us, especially the woman in charge who is originally from Canada. It was great to do a little training there and be part of their celebration. Our early morning training at Changzhou went well. I did stretching and conditioning. There was no real competitive equipment to do events because it was a recreational gym.
After morning training at the Inspire Sports Centre in Changzhou, we toured the tallest temple in China, the Tianning Temple and Padoga. It is also one of the largest Zen Buddhist temples in the whole world.
The whole structure was amazing, but I especially loved the white stairs all around it which were ornately decorated with Chinese characters in gold. The elephant carvings on the first level were also very cool. We also saw monks praying and going about their work. Most had simple clothing.
Our tour guide explained all sorts of interesting things about the Buddhist religion and customs. Everything we saw had deep meaning to these people. He said that the worshippers were not rich, but the monks in the temple were rich because tourists had to pay to enter. In contrast, Vivaldi explained that he made the same amount of money that I had brought for spending money (200.00 CDN), in a whole month! Plus he was struggling to provide for his family and afford a different tiny apartment (he had only 2 months to do so) so that his child could qualify to go to a certain school. This affected me a lot. I barely spent my spending money after that.
The gold statues, above, are in many of the monasteries. It was very interesting to see such opulence and wealth compared to what many of the Chinese lived in. It is beautiful and full of history. I was interested to hear what Vivaldi had to say about the Chinese religions and their ornaments and temples.
The gardens were most appealing to me though. I found them to be magical and natural, unlike anything I have seen in Canada. After experiencing the monastery, we walked through a park to see one of the many channels that wind along with the rivers through the city. The sights were all so breathtaking and beautiful. It was very hot walking on the pavement, but very peaceful and beautiful.
As we walked, we saw elderly Chinese people playing tennis. I mean they were really playing tennis! How is it that everyone is so athletic in this country?!! The park had amazing exercise equipment in the playground that we all had fun with! Sam and I are way in the distance, but it is easy to see how much fun everyone is having!
After some sightseeing in Changzhou, we left by tour bus for our final destination, the Zheijing Provincial Sports Centre in the city of Hangzhou, a 3.5 hour drive away. Miguel sent this to my family:
Hi Thompson family ;-)
Today we were in an amazing hotel *****
We also went to do some conditioning and in 1 hour we go to the last city
All is great
I will keep update as I can
HANGZHOU
Our last long stop in China was in Hangzhou. Hangzhou is the capital of the Eastern province of Zhejiang and is located in the north west of that province at the southern end of the Grand Canal of China which runs to Beijing. It is in the south-central portion of the Yangtze River Delta. I learned that it is the largest city in Zhejiang Province. It is a prosperous city because of its natural beauty, including The West Lake which we toured. Tourism is a big industry in Hangzhou.
The West Lake is actually a UNESCO World Heritage Site! The West Lake Cultural Landscape covers an area of 3, 323 hectares and includes Hangzhou’s most notable historic and scenic places. We visited the scenic area adjacent to the lake which is filled with pagodas, cultural sites, rock carvings, statues as well as the beauty of the hills and lake.
In Hangzhou we stayed at the dormitory at Zhejiang Sports School in Hangzhou. The dormitory was nicer than I expected. It was simple, but roomy enough. Our area was not too clean to start off with....but we were happy to have private bathrooms. They were ‘normal’ toilets after having squat ones at the first gym! I admit, I ‘held it’ for quite a while til other boys tried the squat toilets, then I finally gave in (at the Shanghai Sports Centre). The hole is so tiny! There were lots of ‘misses’ at the squat toilets. You can imagine how ‘gross’ it was to use these. It could have been worse….Grandpa Goodman came to work in China in the 1980’s and they only basically had squat toilets where he worked!
Here is an example of the toilets in Shanghai! Some Chinese call it the ‘happy place’; myself, not so much!
Training the first morning would begin at 6:30am so we all settled down for the night as quickly as we could. I would say that Hangzhou is where we really had a gymnastics training camp happening every day. We lived in dormitories with the athletes, ate meals with them in their cafeteria and trained with the gymnasts twice per day. The Sports Center was huge! It was like a university campus (like the University of Calgary) with many large buildings housing different sports. In the building we were in, women’s and men’s artistic gymnasts trained as well as athletes who competed in trampoline and tumbling, rhythmic gymnastics and judo. We had a tour and saw all their facilities. The acrobats (balancing) trained while we did sometimes. They were amazing at holding positions. positions.
The cafeteria had healthy foods. I loved the crunchy flavourful fruits the best…so awesome! I took a lot of these. We had water in flats in our rooms because it was in short supply in the cafeteria as were drinks. Also, we all had to get used to warm drinks because nothing is cool for drinks in China unless you get it at a store or Starbucks type place. I didn’t mind. It is interesting to learn how athletes around the world live and train. The important thing is how kind and respectful all the Chinese were to each other, their coaches and to us. We were treated so well.
The first night our coaches, Scott and Cam, tried to explain the game hacky sack to the Chinese boys.
The Chinese boys tried to use their iphones to figure out what that could possibly mean! Finally they realized what they called “earth ball” in Chinese, was our game of hacky sack. We all played together! This was how I learned to count in Chinese – up to 7 – because that is the most times we could keep the ball in the air! Here are the numbers: E, R, San, So, Wo, Lio, Chi, Ba, Chio, Shi, then for the teen numbers I know it is Shi-E, Shi-R, Shi-San and so on.
All of the athletes were very serious when they were working (training), but they still smiled and laughed with friends imbetween sets and turns. They were also VERY kind and polite to each other, to us and to their coaches. I liked the Chinese athletes a lot.
The Chinese boys always ran over to help if another athlete needed help adjusting an apparatus or a spot, or anything. For example, when I needed the platform raised on Rings, a boy ran like lightning to do it! He came even though it was his turn next on High Bar. It made me feel so good. I said ‘Chi Chi’ (thank you!) and he said, “bouche”, (no! no problem). That was amazing.
I was glad that Miguel helped me download a cool Chinese language app for my ipad. I just needed to press on a word or number in English and the app would speak it in Chinese Mandarin! Awesome. Chi Chi, the Chinese word for thank you, was the word I used and liked the most. I also learned hello: Ni How, How are you? Ni How Ma?, Bouche, No or no problem.
When I got home I found out that I could use google translate to cut and paste Chinese characters into my email to ‘superman’ (my 15 year old friend’s English name) and Frank. Frank is 18 years old, a twin to Harry, and very nice and friendly to me. I asked ‘superman’ his real English name and that is what he told me. Every time I asked, he would say “superman is my name”. He was so kind. He was the first Chinese friend to email me.
I thought the boys were ‘wealthy’ compared to other Chinese kids. They all had iphones which means wealth to me! I learned from them that their families were not wealthy and the money they earned being on the team and competing partially went back to their parents to support their families at home. I found the Chinese boys I got to know to be so polite and unselfish in and out of the gym. It was great having fun with them after training, like the time we all watched a Chinese movie, with Chinese subtitles (!) in Bailey’s room! That was a lot of fun.
Bikes were everywhere in Hangzhou, just like in Shanghai and Changzhou. I was told that they have a free public bike rental program here so even the poorest citizens can get around the city quickly. That is an awesome idea. We could use that idea in Canada. You see a lot of scooters too.
The first day at the sports centre in Hangzhou we had morning training at 6:30am WITH the Chinese provincial team. All the athletes at this facility were preparing for something called "The Chinese Games". Liang said it is comparable to the Canada Games, however, the victor is awarded with roughly $80 000.00 Canadian equivalent in cash. So there is a very serious tone. But I think the boys are always serious about their sport here. We boys were greeted by the provincial team (we all shook hands) and made our way to the track and field portion of the facility where we all did a long distance running warm up (the ‘dreaded run’), and sprints. From here we made our way to the gymnastics facility and stretched and conditioned lightly.
I could see right away that the boys in China, especially at this provincial sports centre in Hangzhou, were training very hard and were very serious, but they still smile and have fun with their sport. They do get a salary after they turn 12 and they have the chance to win this big amount of money at their upcoming competition, but I know they send a lot back to their families. The boys are very kind, loyal and devoted.
The Chinese boys told me that their families struggle to pay bills and have as good food as they do in their cafeteria. I understand, I thought the food in the cafeteria was GREAT! Also, I saw ‘normal’ dwellings for Chinese families where the whole family is in one room, according to Vivaldi. They look like this:
We ate breakfast after training. Here we have tickets for three meals in the cafeteria each day. The food was very good, but there are not too many drinks so you must get there early for each meal (be at the front of the line). The fruit was amazing: crunchy, flavourful and fresh at every meal. I ate lots of fruit while we stayed at the dorms. We kept flats of water in our rooms. All drinks in China are lukewarm unless you get them in something like a Starbucks store. I got used to it!
After breakfast we had a quick rest/nap before touring the facility. We were warned that any photography or video while the athletes are training unless we were otherwise told would not be tolerated. We literally got to see every sporting complex that takes place here including a MASSIVE trampoline and tumbling section and a rhythmic gymnastics gym! I really liked the tour and seeing so many high level athletes training in different sports. We even saw super tall hard core Chinese basketball players!
We also witnessed some sparring by their kickboxing team, which we were very lucky to be welcomed into and see. Scott Rayment, one of my coaches, was invited into the Judo center to wear a vest and belt and fight one of their top girls... He got thrown right to his back every time! We were all laughing! Damien went in next to fight one of their men and also got judo thrown (hard) to his back... Kyle was the only one to actually get a point, but you could tell that the opponent was maybe a little embarrassed because right after Kyle got ROCKED to the ground too! Sam actually seemed to know what he was doing. Even Sam was taken down in the end!
On the second floor of the enormous sports plex, boys and girls were lined up to do ice buckets: wrists, ankles, knees, just like I do. I did not see any therapists around. The athletes just looked after themselves.
After the tour it was time to rest before second training. The boys are all split into three groups that are age appropriate. Cam coached the middle group with the middle group equivalent of the Chinese boys while Scott had the youngest (my group) and Jian the oldest. I worked near Jian’s group sometimes, sometimes with other Chinese boys. Miguel floated around keeping an eye on everyone's groups. We did three rotations and basically copied what the Chinese were doing. The Canadian coaches helped with both our boys and the Chinese boys and the Chinese coaches did the same. It was an amazing experience for all of us! Our coaches seemed as excited as we were to work with the Chinese athletes and their coaches. We all found that we could easily interact and develop relationships despite not knowing the languages. Gymnastics, like music, is a universal language.
I had a good training on high bar, parallel bars and something like vault, which was drills on floor into a pit. I did front twisting (full twist and one and one half twist) into the pit from a beatboard.
During dinner we made new friends and the Provincial team ended up sitting with us and using translators to talk and get along, girls and boys included for over 2 hours! We used ipads to communicate and try to translate. We Canadians seemed to be quite popular. J I think that is probably because the athletes rarely get foreigners in their facility. Cam took out his Hacky Sack and we played with all the boys until the sun went down. That is how I learned to count in Chinese! I learned to count to 7 because that is how many times maximum, we could keep the ball in the air! It was so funny trying to explain what hacky sack was to the boys. When they looked up ‘instructions,’ it came back, ‘instructions for building a nuclear warhead’!! Too funny!
Day 2 in Hangzhou we had 2, 3 hour trainings. It was a good day of training and I worked very hard. I had a great day training Stutz, diamidov and giants on parallel bars. It was only taking me a few turns to get to handstand in diamidov and Stutz. I was really happy. A Chinese coach helped me with both diamidov and Stutz. Then I did some giants with Miguel. It was a great training.
I noticed that the Chinese boys were very serious about taking good turns, but also smiled imbetween turns and showed how much they enjoyed their sport.
Harry, one of the 18 year old twins, was training in my group with Scott because he had a wrist injury. He had to take it easy and do certain events (leg events) more than others. I was glad he was with me because he was so very nice.
In the afternoon training I did dislocates with the older Chinese boys on the big high bar. This was new for me. I was disappointed that I was not getting 100% to handstand like some of them were and like I wanted to, but I did do some nice ones to giant and tried my hardest. The Chinese coach was helping me again and Liang interpreted if I needed help with the language. That was great. It was also great to watch the Chinese boys do what I was aiming to do. They were 12-13years old.
We stayed close to our new friends from China and walked back and forth to training, the dorms and cafeteria together. I liked talking to Harry and Frank, the 18year old twins I met, and “superman’, English for my 15yr old friend as well as the younger boys I didn’t learn the names of! (One said he was ‘Batman’ and one said he knew no English, but then he would talk to me a little.) I met girl athletes as well. There were always lots of girl gymnasts near Frank and Harry. They were quite the ladies’ men! One girl kept saying, ‘Hi Elijah, Hi Elijah!’. In the cafeteria, one girl got a package with bubble wrap in it. She jumped up so excited and started jumping up and down on the bubble wrap! It was really funny.
The coaches went out for a dinner and we hung out in our rooms and enjoyed time with our new friends. We used ipad apps to communicate and simple sign language. We watched a Chinese movie in Bailey’s room one night with the Chinese boys too. It was hilarious because, although it had subtitles, the subtitles also were in Chinese! We just laughed whenever the Chinese boys laughed.
I liked the split training every day and getting to know the Chinese athletes and coaches. The coaches were also very nice, helping me on high bar with dislocates and Rings with double layout dismounts. I was praying for dislocate to handstand on the real high bar. I know coach Shu had great tips but I just couldn’t get closer those days. I will keep trying back in Calgary. Now I can say that 2 weeks after returning to Calgary, I began making dislocate to handstand on real high bar consistently!
Once when I was training on Rings, the Chinese coach had Frank demonstrate a double layout dismount so that I could have a visual. That was great. Then Frank jumped on again and did a full twist with the double layout; nice! We had fun training together.
I liked the pit in Hangzhou very much. It was a noodle pit. It was much cleaner than our pit and less chalky so my asthma did not act up.
On Pommel Horse, it was much rougher than in Canada; almost like sandpaper. I basically destroyed my longs getting rips on the pommel. It was hard to do step up, but I kept trying. It was good to see what the boys there cope with. They had bruises and rips on their legs like I do at home often.
After training we did more touring. We toured the famous West Lake conservation and historic area. It was beyond description for beauty. You would have to be there!:
This trip to China was so cool, so amazing. The culture and people are so amazing that words can’t describe it. You have to experience it. And I did.
I enjoyed Liang, the head coach from Edmonton who also is part of Inspire Sports in Changzhou, very much. I also met his wife, daughter and son because they came for a visit. Liang knew so many people in China, it was amazing! He also was confident and comfortable everywhere we went, so we knew we were safe (even if some of the food looked very different from what we were used to at home!!).
Our last night in Hangzhou concluded with an incredible display on the water with a new play. They have a stage built underwater in the park similar to that of Vegas's "O". It raises and lowers to showcase the actors in different ways... It was probably the most visually stunning thing I have had the pleasure of seeing not to mention the sheet lightning added to the effect. The guide said that the show told one of the stories of Hangzhou. It was like a visual history described in dance, color and light of the Song Dynasty. The people looked like they were walking and dancing on top of the water, like Jesus would have looked like when He walked on water. The stage was invisible and you just saw their feet lightly skipping across the water’s surface.
I cannot even begin to describe the beauty, artistry, dance, costumes, singing and story. I couldn’t understand the story, but I could see it was carefully crafted and flowing. The lightning seemed like it was choreographed into the show!
Cam took this photo just as the lightning struck!! Priceless.
August 2nd was the last day of morning training where we exchanged gifts. I received a beautiful fan with pandas on it for my gift. We all shook hands and took photos. “I will miss these boys,” I thought to myself. In the afternoon we were able to do conditioning and then have fun with our Chinese friends by playing a friendly game of volleyball.
Harry was on my team for the volleyball game and we won. His brother Frank was on the opposite team. J
A girl was crying when Dillon got on the bus to leave so he got off to say goodbye to her again and she cried even more! We sure made nice friends in China!
The coaches have invited us back anytime we like and they hope we can come sooner rather than later. They said we could even come and compete at their provincial championships!
I will never forget these boys. Here I am shaking hands with Frank. He sincerely wants me to keep in touch and return to Hangzhou. His brother, Harry said the same, as well as ‘superman’ and the younger Chinese boy who said, “I’m Batman!”.
After saying goodbye to our friends, we had a long day of sights and experiences, but a very awesome day! We visited another Buddhist temple, enjoyed the Song Dynasty City Park, did a little shopping and saw a tea field...We even got to pick tea leaves and learn how good green tea is for your body and the complicated process that goes into producing green tea!
I loved visiting this amazing tea farm the best and asked all sorts of questions to learn exactly the process. I bought the most expensive precious emperor’s tea for Jasmine. I was so excited. The emperor tea is the sweetest tea because it is picked first before spring. It was 100 more Yuan than spring tea. That is ok, I wanted my sister to have the most amazing tea in China, and she did.
The tea lady (tour guide for the tea farm) explained that when someone greets you swinging a tea pot, 1, 2, 3 times, that means “welcome, you are allowed to stay.” She also talked about all the natural vitamins in this organic green tea and all the many many health benefits, for your blood, skin, complexion and immune system that this tea offers. It is also available in pill form, but you must take five pills in order to equal 15 cups of green tea.
I also learned that tea is a major part of Hangzhou’s economy and culture. The tea I bought for Jasmine, Longiing, is a special variety of green tea, the most notable type being Xi-Hu Long Jing, grown near Xi Hu in Hangzhou and originating here. My teammate Sam Ito bought lots of tea too.
I learned that the women do the leaves picking, sorting and packing, (the ‘easy’ job according to the tour guide) and the men do the drying and final preparations. It takes three years to train the workers who grab the leaves in the large bowls that go up to 200 degrees Fahrenheit. The workers have to grab the leaves in these spinning, boiling hot bowls and turn them continually with their bare hands! I was so impressed with the whole facility and the entire tea growing and making process.
I will never forget the amazing fields of organic green tea that moved up the hill into a beautiful forest. Looking at that scene was like walking into a fairytale. I tried green tea at the restaurants, but it was nothing like the amazing tea at this tea farm.
After the tea farm, we did more sightseeing in the streets of Hangzhou. We saw cool rickshaws and more monks too. These monks wore colorful costumes, but many monks we saw also wore simple costumes that looked more like judo outfits. The monks in this photo took tourists in their rickshaw and played music alongside them. The music had an interesting sound – a different sounding rhythm than I am used to, but a nice melody.
Damien and Kyle tried getting into two really beautifully decorated rickshaws. They had a lot of fun and looked like they were in a movie. Musicians played alongside them.
After saying goodbye to our close friends at the Zheijing Sports Centre, we did more sightseeing, enjoyed a water park and attended and amazing indoor Chinese acrobatic and dance show. So much happened in one day!!
The water park in Hangzhou was amazing! We played knee deep or deeper in this huge water playground/obstacle course. It had things like traversing an area going from ring to ring. In that challenge, Dillon almost made it to the last ring. Scott held that ring to make it a bit harder to make and WHAM! Dillon missed his grip on the last ring and plummeted right into the water! I had fun trying the log roll type things, jumping from pad to pad and the rope walks. It was a great thing to play in when it was so hot, and all free! We need one of these in Calgary too!
If all this was not enough of a climax on our last day, we saw another wonderful Chinese acrobatic/dance show! It was indoors this time and absolutely unbelievable! Liang said it is currently rated as one of the top 3 shows in the world. It artistically told the story of the history of Hangzhou. The background was so amazing. The stage hands moved it so incredibly fast that it all seemed real. At one point a whole waterfall was moved onto the stage. Then it felt and sounded like it was raining in the theatre. You could hear the raindrops on the roof, feel the sound of thunder and see the mist. It was totally amazing!
Two stories were told in the show. The first one was about a girl who started out as a shape shifting snake. She turned herself into a human girl in order to go into town. In town, she fell in love with a boy. But, the boy’s parents refused to let them stay together, so the girl’s heart was broken. This is why one of the bridges in Hangzhou is called the Broken Bridge. The girl said, “the bridge is not broken, but my heart is.” It was an amazing story.
The second story was basically a Romeo and Juliet type story, China version. In this story, the two loves married and the boy died after the marriage. The girl stayed by the boy’s tomb, crying and crying for days. One day, the girl saw the tomb open and she jumped in. Now, so the story goes, they are in paradise together and it is a happy ending.
The same day, we rode the bullet train in Shanghai. That was super awesome for sure. It did not feel like it was going over 300 miles per hour, but when you passed another train or looked out a window, WOW did everything fly! It was called “The Maglev” and we each paid the reasonable fare ourselves. Good fun!
The bullet train took us to the Shanghai airport where we boardeed the plane to take us home. Lots of Chinese people were wearing masks to prevent the spread of flu and disease at the airport, but I had survived my eleven days in China, with supplements, clean water, healthy food and probiotics, and no sickness!
It was a great surprise to see my friend Jeff Thomson on the same flight as we were on from Shanghai to his home in Vancouver! Jeff talked with me about my awesome trip for a bit and I told him how very much I liked the Chinese people. He does too!
The flight home was better than the flight to China because we had screens and more modern airplane this time. Plus I had all the excitement of having completed the most amazing adventure of my life to think about!
Soon we landed in Vancouver where Scott, Kyle and Cam stayed overnight to take the last leg of their trip the next day. I did not have to wait overnight for a flight. I was on my way home! Thankfully the wait in Vancouver for our last flight home to Calgary was not too long. I was tired and sore from the long flight back from China and the hard training. It would be good to be home! I was looking forward to seeing Mom, Dad, Josh, Kaisha, Jasmine and my dog, Toby!
Back home at last, with my t shirt gifts for the boys, special tea for Jasmine, bracelet for Kaisha and fan with horses on it for mom. I am so glad to be home but so proud and happy that I went to China for an amazing training camp and cultural experience you could never ever get without experiencing it.
I gave my email to three of the Chinese boys: Frank and Harry (18 year old twins who were identical but I could tell them apart by their faces and hair) and Superman (15 years old). Superman would not tell me his English name, except to say ‘superman!’. Superman was the first to email me 12 hours after I was back in my bedroom in Calgary. He asked me to email him a picture. I sent him one of me sitting at my computer in my room. He emailed me back that he could see some medals there and that showed great promise for the future!
I already miss the Chinese boys I met and trained with, very much. You can see all the joy and happiness in these pictures taken on the last day with them in Hangzhou:
The boys, above, and joined by our coaches, below!
It was the most amazing experience of my life so far. I will never forget the sights and sounds, culture, kind athletes, great coaches and awesome time I had in China the summer I was 11 years old.
